Pain's Horcrux
by dundee998
Summary: A fragment of a story I wish I could finish. It would be EPIC. This was written last year, a good long time before the powers of the Rin'negan were explained, so this was my personal explanation. Sakura and Naruto embark on a quest for a weapon.


All was flat, featureless ground, but for some miscellaneous walls that somehow meant nothing at all, a run of railroad tracks, and a single bench. On the bench was an old, broken man with long, white hair and large hands.

He sat there staring at the gnarled hands until the boy appeared, bewildered and confused. Blonde hair, blue eyes; yes, this was the one he was waiting for. The boy-really, more young man than adolescent- looked curiously around the abandoned train station, until he saw the old man alone on the bench. The youth's eyes lit up in recognition, and he hurried to sit next to the old man.

"Ero-s - er, Jiraiya, I need to know what the code means! 'The real one isn't there?' What did you mean?"

"The bodies were Horcruxes. All of them." A dry, humorless chuckle. "Figures that little snot would comb the world over for that particular technique. He's even more frightened of death than the Snake bastard." The old man looked up from his withered, calloused hands to look at his companion straight in the eyes, anxiety written all across his lined face. "You need to find a Basilisk. A giant snake. A sword bathed in its venom is the only way to kill a Horcrux, other than Fiend Fire, a type of Amaterasu, and the freak has way too much experience with that to bother trying."

"W-What's a Horcrux?"

"Find Dumbledore, he knows what to do. They're in England-a Western island far away from the Continent. Learn from the man in the painting Dumbledore, help the scarred boy Harry, and find the venom of the snake Basilisk-that's your mission."

A long pause as the boy digested this information.

"I miss you." The old man smiled.

"I miss you too, but don't go following me too soon, brat. You've got some good friends on your side."

"When can I see you again?"

"When you're way too close to death for comfort. That reminds me." He thumped the young blonde's head. "Wake up."

The world exploded into blackness as the boy was forced awake.

---

He woke to the sound of sobbing. Feminine sobbing. There was something hot, wet, and heavy shaking and clutching his chest.

"Sakura-chan?" He coughed, and winced. His throat felt unusually sore. Damn Kyuubi.

The sobbing got even louder, so he lifted a hand that felt five tons heavy and awkwardly patted where he guessed her back to be; he didn't want to try opening his eyes yet.

"S'okay. M'not dead yet. M'gonna kick all 'a Akatsuki's collective asses, y'hear?" He paused. "Sasuke's ass, too. Just lemme at 'im." He smiled as he heard a giggle amidst his teammate's sniffles. "What happened?"

"Pein attacked Konoha." He winced again. This was very, very bad. "Danzou took advantage of the situation and became Rokudaime Hokage-we don't know where Tsunade is. Lots of people died…" She broke off, and he could feel several splashes of a hot liquid on his chest.

"The last time I saw her, she'd sent a toad to go and find you and get you to come back. That was three months ago." His eyes flew open in spite of himself, and all illusions of this being a pleasant, if disturbing dream vanished.

The girl he once loved was a mess. Her hair was a purplish-brown mess of mud and sticks, and sheared to within an inch of her scalp. Once full lips were chapped and cracked, and she hid a badly malnourished body in ill-fitting clothes that made her look like a collection of sticks in a bag. Her bright green eyes were red with an overwhelming sense of tiredness, and her dirty face was still wet with tears. He began coughing again as he struggled to move into a sitting position.

"I-_keh_-WHAT? I mean, _WHAT?!_" He cast his eyes around the area, and found his newest home to be utterly destroyed. The legendary peaks of Mt. Myobokuzan had been wiped clean away, leaving nothing but flattened rubble and boulders. Half-rotted frog corpses littered the area, blood swept clean away from the morbid scenery. He thought he was going to be sick.

"Fukasaku-sensei…" The tiny, kind frog who had been training him for the past few weeks had been reduced to a small skeleton hidden beneath the burned remains of his black garment. It took him a long time to gain the courage to look away from the pile of rags at his side and turn back to his teammate.

"Who else is dead." She shivered. The dark look replacing her teammate's usual sunny demeanor was startling, as was the grim tone with which he asked the question.

"Kakashi, while successfully saving Chouji's life. That boy who hung out with Konohamaru; he stood his ground against Pein for about five minutes. Ichiraku Teuchi, protecting his daughter. Akimichi Chouza, same battle as Kakashi. Hyuuga Hiashi, defending his daughters…" She gulped. "Iruka."

There was a sudden loud crunching sound as the atmosphere suddenly gathered in on itself around the two teenagers and compressed the dirt they sat on into a huge bowl. She closed her eyes; she'd seen this exact effect back when the boy sitting beside her had transformed into some strange half-beast thing as he fought Orochimaru. She would never, ever forget that fight.

"We need to leave."

"Where?"

"I'll know when we get there."

"…Alright. I trust you."

-----

There was a girl in the woods, who limped on a mangled and bloodied leg that was grotesque to look at. She supported under her arm a great bloody thing shaped like a boy. She stared with dull eyes that, were she in a better condition, would have been a bright lively green. The three held their breath as the bedraggled vision dragged itself into the clearing, and stopped. The girl placed the boy-thing tenderly on the ground, then collapsed herself onto the carpet of needles. "I know some one is there," she said in a low, accented voice, coarse with miles of hard travel, and the girl dropped her head. She was unconscious. Ron was the first to break the following silence.

"How creepy was that," he said. "Did we mess up our wards or is she just weird?"

"I think the question we should be asking is, do we help her or not?" asked Hermione with a skeptical look.

"Them," said Harry quietly. "There's a boy too. Do we help them or not?" The three youths looked at each other, and the answer was unanimous.

----------

A girl, with a face surrounded by a halo of soft brown hair that moved like a cloud, and eyes furrowed with concern… A boy, whose pale skin was mottled with some strange discoloration and hair the color of violent sunsets… A third; silent, pale, dark and solemn, who watched with dark emeralds from under a scattered fringe of shadows… Always they talked in that damnable language, full of strange vowels and squishy consonants, often speaking so loud and quick that she wondered if even they knew what they were saying… Consciousness usually lay just out of reach, and when she was awake, it felt like she was sleeping. She had no idea how many days she remained in this state, but when the fog finally dispersed from her mind entirely and she lay awake, aware, and silent, it was early evening. Warm, yellow light spilled comfortably through the cracks in the tent, and the redheaded boy she'd caught glimpses of from before paced angrily in circles. The girl was tending to something in the corner, and seemed to be trying to calm the boy down in a patient, yet exasperated tone.

"He can't help not knowing what to do, Ron-none of us do! You're his best friend-why don't you start acting like it? He's got enough on his mind without you complaining all the time, and we can't move on with these two still unconscious-"

"I just don't see why we _have_ to help them! We _have_ to fetch the horcruxes, we _have_ to be outlaws, we _have_ to save the world-can't someone else nurse those freaks back to health? Where did they come from anyway, Hermione? How do we know they aren't going to kill us the moment they wake up? You saw the weapons they have. Who are they?"

"You looked at our weapons?" she croaked, trying to sit up on the couch. Both heads whirled to look at her, and she could finally see what the girl-Hermione- had been attending. The rest of his body was covered in a dirty, thick blanket, but she could see the head and shoulders of a boy with tanned skin and blonde hair… "Naruto. How is he?" Hermione blinked a few times in surprise, then composed herself to answer.

"Ah, he's still got a broken leg, but he's mostly fine, except that he hasn't woken up yet." the girl looked away and blushed, but Ron still stared at her with intense, shallow blue eyes. "If it's not impolite to ask-who are you people?"

She held Ron's gaze for a few silent moments, then turned back to Hermione.

"Refugees is the word, I think. Our home is at war. Naruto, my companion, had a dream-a premonition-telling him to go West, to an island called Britain, so here we are. His name is Uzumaki Naruto, I am Haruno Sakura. I know your names, but who is the dark one?" Ron let out a hollow bitter laugh at that.

"'The Dark One?' Yeah, that describes Harry perfectly, the moody blighter. You won't see much of him, though-he's got too much brooding to do to actually take care of the people he saved." Sakura made no answer, but maneuvered her body to rest her feet on the floor. Hermione immediately protested.

"Sa-Sakra, you really shouldn't be moving-" She ignored the pitiful girl, the mangling of her name, and walked haltingly to where her teammate lay.

She paused before his body, to churn her chakra and blend it into that specific consistency needed to mend rather than break, before guiding a thin stream of healing energy down to his head. Guiding her senses into the thread, she felt around; straightening out some muscles, sealing up a small crack in the tibia, until she reached his heart.

A good portion of the tissue was dead, it was a miracle that it was still beating, but blood was still being pumped mostly steadily. She cursed inwardly, then concentrated on breaking up the dead tissue into raw protein and rebuilding the rest of the heart tissue by transmuting some spare regular muscle. It seemed to take hours, and the only reason she was still standing was out of duty to the boy. As the final strand of tissue fell into place, she sent a brief wash of chakra to his brain, and released the jutsu.

Before she collapsed on the spot out of exhaustion, she noted with some satisfaction that his eyes had opened.

-----------

It was Harry who caught the girl. He had been walking into the tent, and she had just retracted the pale green energy from the boy, and he saw her falling…

"What happened," he asked. He was still supporting the girl by her back.

"Well, the girl woke up. She told us they were running away from a war, and that her friend had a premonition telling him to come here-to come West. Her name is Sakra, I think, and his name sounds a little like Noodle. I'm pretty sure they're Japanese. She asked about you, then walked over to her friend and started casting a foreign spell-without a wand!" Hermione brightened up at the realization of that fact.

"I saw, Hermione." Harry dragged the girl back to the couch, and made an attempt to put her in a comfortably position.

"How long do you think it will take for the other one to wake up?" Ron asked. He was answered by a yawn.

"_Hey, Sasuke-teme, I don't have time to kick yer ass right now," said a tired, gravelly voice. Hermione frowned, and cast a simple translation charm on the waking boy. "Sakura-chan? You look different somehow." The three stared at him, who still babbled on unconcernedly. "Are you under a Henge? And why is Sasuke-teme… here…" His eyes bugged out. "You're not Sasuke! And you're not Sakura! Where the hell am I? Who are you people?"_

_All three stared at him for a good long moment, before Ron stomped out. "You guys take this one. I'm going out for a walk."_


End file.
